Still pisses me off, most of us knew at the time that he had no intention of selling the naming rights and now nobody's talking about that any more, straight from the Mike Ashley PR handbook, make a decision that pisses every single fan off, ride the storm and eventually people will find something else to bother themselves with. The name change is generating **** all money for the club certainly not directly, all it's doing is advertising his stupid ****ing charva company with those godawful logos all over the ****ing place.
The council are digging their heels in because the stadium located right in the city centre is a famous part of Newcastle, St James' Park is pretty well-known and generates good publicity for the city, the Sports Direct Arena (shudder) flies in the face of all the tradition. Also if the council is seen to be acting on the matter it will generate goodwill from citizens as it's a no-brainer that nobody agrees with the name change, especially when we haven't even sold the rights to anyone.